Key murder trial witness talks about Alabama man’s fatal visit to meet her in Columbus
What Columbus police were called to the morning of June 22, 2020 was not what they found when they got to the intersection of 17th Avenue and Nina Street, officers said.
Testifying Tuesday at Lydell Maynard “Trapa” Sparks’ murder trial in Muscogee Superior Court, police Sgt. Walter Haywood said he’d been told witnesses had found a 9-year-old boy dead in the road.
What Haywood discovered around 7:30 a.m. was not the body of a child but a grown man, face-down, against the curb, in shorts, T-shirt and socks, but no shoes. And no identification. Authorities did not know then who Travis Henry Jr., 22, of Montgomery, Alabama, was, and they had no idea how he came to be there.
What they could plainly see, according to Sparks’ defense attorney Michael Garner, was that Henry did not appear to have been robbed: A wad of cash was on the ground next to the body, and a broken silver necklace was there, too. Henry’s wristwatch was still on him, though its band was around his left palm, as if it were coming off.
Garner emphasized that evidence, in his opening statement to jurors, because prosecutors are alleging Sparks and three other suspects in Henry’s homicide lured him to Columbus to rob him, before Sparks shot Henry in the torso and drove away in Henry’s BMW, leaving him dying in the street.
The body’s condition showed he’d been dead for hours, likely shot around 11 p.m. the day before, Garner said.
Henry’s BMW later was found abandoned on Brickyard Road in Phenix City, and Henry’s shoes were inside it, attorneys said. The car is the property Henry was robbed of, according to Sparks’ indictment.
The alleged plot
Once police identified the victim, detectives checking his Facebook account found messages linking him to Terreona Horton of Columbus, who’d invited him to come here, said Assistant District Attorney Peter Hoffman. She joined with Sparks, Kalaya Sumter and Wayman L. McMillian in a scheme to rob Henry, Hoffman said.
Horton, Sumter and McMillian each will testify against Sparks, who they said fired the fatal shot, the prosecutor said. “They are the only eyewitnesses in this case,” he said.
Horton, 22, was the first to take the witness stand. She said Henry came to Columbus to attend an event downtown, and messaged her to tell her he was coming.
“He’d been trying to get with me,” she said.
They all met at Whisperwood Apartments on Flat Rock Road, where Horton and Sumter had gone to swim, though neither lived there. That’s where Horton got into Henry’s BMW, and the other three followed in Horton’s car, stopping at a Wynnton Road Circle K on the way downtown, she said.
They parked for a while by the splash pad on Bay Avenue near the Chattahoochee RiverWalk, before leaving there in the same cars to go to Nina Street to buy drugs, she said.
That’s where she got out of the BMW and stood with Sumter by her car as Sparks approached the BMW with a gun and “got aggressive” with Henry, she testified.
“Mr. Sparks basically was telling him to give it up,” she said of the alleged robbery.
She heard a gunshot and panicked, screaming for people to run, but Sumter told her to wait, she said. Sparks asked her for a shirt, to wipe down the BMW, and with Sparks alone in the BMW and everyone else in Horton’s car, they drove to Phenix City to leave Henry’s vehicle there, she said.
After that, Sparks got into Horton’s car carrying a bag, and they drove back to Columbus, to Rotary Park off Victory Drive, where Sparks walked down to the river with the bag, and came back without it, she said. Then the suspects split up and went home, she said.
The guilty pleas
Judge John Martin ordered that no media photograph the codefendants during their courtroom testimony, as Hoffman claimed the publicity would put their safety at risk while they’re being held in the Muscogee County Jail.
Here are their pleas and sentences.
- Horton pleaded May 26 to armed robbery. Her recommended sentence is 20 years in prison with eight to serve and the rest on probation.
- McMillian, 27, pleaded guilty last week to aggravated assault and being a convicted felon with a firearm. His recommended sentence is 15 years with eight to serve and the rest on probation. Court records show he was charged with the firearms offense because he had a rifle and a Glock pistol when police arrested him Dec. 31, 2020, and he had a burglary conviction from Feb. 10, 2017.
- Sumter, 19, pleaded guilty last week to aggravated assault, and her recommended sentence is 15 years with six years to serve and the rest on probation.
Martin will sentence them when the trial is over.
Besides murder, Sparks, 21, is charged with armed robbery, using a firearm to commit a felony, and possessing a gun while he was a first offender on probation. He has a Dec. 12, 2019 conviction for aggravated battery, prosecutors said.
This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 3:16 PM.